Thought about writing here my views on JI's works as I watch or listen to them. I'm a recent Lost Girl and still catching up on many of the things JI has done through the years.

So, yesterday I watched and re-watched Burn Your Phone, a short movie from 1999 directed by Alan Cumming and starring him too as a phone operator.
JI plays a voice, The Killer.

Fascinating to see how Mr. Cumming's face reacts to every call and he interacts with the callers. All the sequence of calls is very well done and The Killer fits perfectly in it. I even jumped when he said "Boooo!!"

Startling was JI's voice change from intimidator to actor playing intimidator. But what I found most captivating was the whole movie tension and connexion with the fact that we are all being watched and something like that could be done to a phone operator just to determine whether he stays or goes from the company shedding employees.

I would also have unplugged my headphones if I was submitted to what Andy had to go through.

All in all, what a good surprise this short movie was! And hearing the 2 personalities JI plays was also great!

Case Histories now:
Last night I finished the 2nd series and was all tearfull with the "want to kiss you all the time, but don't love you" speech. Tears of laughter and sadness. What a scrambbled-egg character Jackson Brodie is! And poor guy, he was all happy with the baby and was denied even rocking him for a few more minutes... Ay.... Sigh! Did that Charlotte steal all the money he was payed (the 65K pounds) and he did nothing?

He needs a new series, definitely! Loved the stories and the way they were weaved together. More, more, more!!!!

This series and Awake should be continued. It's a crime against humanity not to do it!!!

I've been Awake (literally) watching all episodes of Awake, rewinding to get every detail, every word... And have finally discovered that we need the Awake continuation urgently!

In the red world Michael is stuck in a cell awaiting to be charged with murder, the bad people are at large, Emma is pregnant and Hannah suffering with all the mess! In the green world he doesn't feel a sense of closure after solving his own case! And there is a 3rd world where the laws of physics don't apply properly, letting him to even comunicate with himself in both red and green worlds.

There's loads of potential to continue the series!

I'm not an expert on American series, being more a British series fan, but I think Awake is a bloody good series that should not have been cancelled at all

It's a brainy series that satisfies both mind and physical senses and TV just cannot be throwing away opportunities like this! They don't come that easily!

Actually I sometimes also fall asleep listening to Night Heron, but I restart the following day and have managed to proceed up to chapter 25.

It's not an easy listening book, it introduces a lot of new characters between chapters and the beginning of the book may indicate that it is boring. Well, sort of, it's really a dramatic start, with an escape from a labour camp in the Chinese desert.

One really gets to enter the story after 5 chapters or so, when the different characters stories start to get together.

I'm liking it, really, being at the most eventful part of it. That being the simple plug-in of a car key disguised as a pen drive in order to copy the Chinese network of the Defence Missile Organisation. But at what cost for those who do it! Operation designed by the MI6 with help from the Americans. Only the Chinese are not far behind in discovering this. So it's a spy thriller, more convoluted than James Bond, but perhaps more plausible.

Night Heron is the code name for the Chinese guy (nicknamed Peanut) who restarts spying for the Brits, after escaping the labor camp, having been imprisoned for participating in the Tiannamen protests and killing a policeman, I think, not for spying. He approaches a troublesome British journalist living in Beijing to tell him he will have relevant information for the Brits soon. Then he starts blackmailing a former University colleague who also was involved in Peanut's spy ring and now works in the Ballistic Missible program (which is developing a new missile) to give him information. And this guy, not to be denounced by Peanut as a former British spy and lose his comfortable position in life, reluctantly and with loads of fear, does the deed and supplies first a report on an failed missile launch and later introduces the disguised pen drive into the USB port of his computer, without triggering the usual alarm system prepared by the Chinese.

That's where I am. The pen is flashing green and ready to be taken out of the USB port. Peanut only wants to escape China by supplying the information. He hasn't yet been detected by the Chinese authorities, so he is living a clandestine life. The British journalist is his contact with the English embassy, who has an MI6 agent organising operations in Beijing. Part of the story is set in London in the Vauxhall Cross SIS or MI6 building and gives us the background for the British operation that uses one female agent (Trish Pattinson), the journalist (Phillip Mangan), Peanut, and the blackmailed Chinese scientist to spy on China's missile program.

All this is complemented by several MI6 people, and their idiosyncrasies; an additional spy ring from HongKong (old lady, sons and a nephew) that MI6 uses to follow the Mangan, Peanut and Chinese scientist; Mangan's posse and his work on followers of a strange religion in China that are being pursued by Chinese authorities; Peanut's clandestine living place (a brothel, disguised as a hairdresser); and in Washington a government intelligence guy that, after giving a talk at Harvard, ends up being seduced by a Taiwanese student to whom he tells about the knowledge of the new missile - only she then tells all to the Chinese authorities in HongKong, in order to have his family left alone - regular practice apparently between Chinese authorities and vulnerable and ambitious students from Taiwan who still have some family in mainland China.

That's what I know for the moment. Supposedly all hell will break lose after this, because the pen drive operation has actually slowed the network down and it was done on a Saturday. I know Peanut is shot down in the end, because, in one of the times I've fallen asleep and when I awake Jason is almost near the end, I've caught that bit. But no more than that.

JI's reading is captivating, although he is not a big master of voices (he has already said he isn't a great imitator), like Kenneth Branagh. Branagh really performs the books he reads, being sometimes a bit hammy, but I like it, and the different characters are easy to differentiate. With JI it's a little bit more difficult to get immediately which character is speaking, so I go back and listen to it over and over, until I understand nearly all the words (English not being my native language). But he is very naturalistic, in that he is very good, nothing seems forced.

Give it another try, Thunder, and you'll see that you'll end up inside the characters mind.

I really liked it - but I was driving a car and falling asleep was not an option. Actually I rather like spy novels so it kept my attention. In fact I made it to my destination before the book was done and found myself sitting in the car listening to the end.

Hmmm. I've been binge watching the last 4 episodes of Capital City. What a delight to find Chas Ewell as the Best Man to Declan! He looked . And that sake drinking scene was wonderful. Subsequent hangover very deserved too.
I definitely have a great crush on Chas...

Previously on the week I had obsessively watched Peter Pan, its extras, listening to the soundtrack, etc. And that felt very well. Was very impressed by the flying technique and the fencing which was really good!
And suddenly I felt very attracted to Captain Hook. Although I still have George Darling in my heart! But Hook is massively growing on me, definitely. The soudtrack playing in my head for a long time. Until I went back to Chas...

And now I'm picking up my Lucius Malfoy cake at the patisserie. Unfortunately the printer there doesn't do proper green at the moment, so it'll be a blue feast. Even the dark mark will be blue. It'll be a most sweet weekend! Yum!!!

My Lucius Malfoy cake is ready. See photo at @ninitosca Twitter account. It's delicious. Have already eaten one dark mark. Found the drawing at deviantart.com, by ebe-kastein. Great drawings they have there!